Over the holiday season I spent time reflecting on 2020 and even though it was a tough year, I found that there were some amazing moments.  The thing that struck me the most is that I had submitted that the pandemic had shadowed and directed a lot of my thoughts or rather what my mind focused on.

I decided that 2021 will be different.  Even though the pandemic continues and there are external circumstances that will no doubt determine changes I will have to make in my personal and professional life, I am committed to steering my own course.

I wanted to share with you how you too can still have your best year yet by focusing on the things you CAN change.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

1. What is your Why?

This is what drives us to take action OR not take action.
Why did you decide to make “whatever this is (weight loss, reading more, meditation, self-love, etc)” your goal?

Is it for YOU or is it because of societal or familial pressures?
Maybe you want to do this for someone else.

Have you attempted to pursue this endeavor in the past and why did it work or not work?

Why do you want to do it?

Take time to write our your why now.  Write the following on the top of a fresh page of paper.  “I want to _____, because___________.

Maybe you want to lose weight.  Maybe you really want to make this happen so you can be ready for that summer wedding, or because your health is important.

Maybe you want to get into shape for a hiking trip.  What ever it is for you.  Write it down now.
When you physically write it out, your likelihood to make it happen goes up ten-fold.

Why is at the core of your existence and the foundation of ALL ACTIONs, therefore, once you define your WHY, the next secret will come into play.

2. BE

Now that you understand WHY you want to have your goals transform into your reality it is ESSENTIAL to become aware of who you need to BE so that this can materialize.

What characteristics are present in someone who has already achieved this status in their lives?

Who are you today that is limiting this possibility?

What are you willing to change before tomorrow morning to begin the process?
We often have clarity of what we would like to HAVE in our lives (aka New Year’s Resolutions), without first working on who we are, which is responsible for what we will have.

3.  DO

Now that you have a better idea as to WHY you have established this goal and who you need to BE in order for it to materialize, the next fundamental secret is what will you DO so that your resolution will become a reality. In our office, we look at our health, and even our life for that matter, within three distinct domains:

Move By Design: To move your body daily so as to pursue health.  This is one of my personal goals for 2021.

“I am committing to exercising for at least 20 minutes per day.”

When we seek out and make health our focus and priority, then looking good, being a healthy weight and feeling great are the result.  Our bodies were designed to be moved everyday with whole body movements.  It is essential that we train our bodies for strength, flexibility, endurance, agility, power, cardiovascular strength, and stamina

EAT BY DESIGN: Eating foods that are wholesome and nutritious is essential to being healthy.

What are the foods that give you energy versus the foods that rob us of energy?

To be more alive than dead, you have to eat foods that are more alive than dead.

If it comes in a package, doesn’t grow on a tree or in the ground or move on land or water or air, then don’t eat it.

Basically, to be healthy, we need an abundance of foods that whole and in their natural form.  Processed foods or foods made by man are not healthy.

THINK BY DESIGN: We must talk to ourselves and surround ourselves with positive, empowering conversations in order to be well.  For many of us, if we talked to our friends the way we talked to ourselves, we wouldn’t have any friends!

Take time every day to give thanks for that which you have, which you have learned and the people you share life with.  Affirm yourself and be kind to yourself through daily rituals.

By giving thought to this content you are reading, you are raising your consciousness to a higher level.

Another element for GOAL MANIFESTATION that is more than essential if you want 2021 to be distinctively different is what we call CONNECTION.

Connection can be defined as accountability from another human being or beings. Connection is having someone other than yourself who will motivate you each day and leave you feeling inspired.

Connection is creating a synergy with one or more people so that TOGETHER everyone achieves more than you could have accomplished on your own.

Connection is at the foundation of our purpose at Synergy Chiropractic to making Kanata the healthiest community in Canada because together everything becomes possible.

We define a movement as a group of people who share a mission and are willing to challenge the status quo so that the world changes.

The mission that we share is one where our community will become one of the healthiest places to live in our country and the status quo that we will challenge is the conditioned beliefs of society about the inevitable health challenges that we will experience.

4.  HAVE:

The Fourth Secret deals with Self Actualization or in other words, what do you want to HAVE?

I want you to be specific with regards to what you are looking to achieve in 2012.

What will you look like?
How will you be living?
What changes will have taken place?

See yourself as the byproduct of someone who ACCOMPLISHED this feat. Give deep thought to the day to day actions and activities as if you are already living this way.

Self-Actualization is an extremely REAL psychology because you convince yourself that the achievement has become your reality.

5.  CSWS:

Now that you have clarity of your WHY, you know who you need to BE and what you need to DO, and you can already see yourself as someone who has made their goal a reality, it is time for the FINAL SECRET which is an acronym that I want all of you to really focus on right now.

Clear your head, put any of your life stresses behind you, and take in these four words which are CSWS…CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP!

When these first four secrets become part of your conscious state, nothing will stop you, especially when you make the choice, the decision, and the commitment to yourself that NOTHING will stand between YOU and what you are looking to achieve.

When astronauts return from space, the most common comment they all have is how vast the galaxy is. When they look down on the earth below, they don’t see troubles. They don’t see races, countries, poverty or wealth. They all realize how small we are on this spinning speck of dust amongst the larger universe and

The Overview Effect helps us look at our lives objectively.

beyond.

They call this the Overview Effect.

So let’s apply this to our objective look at our lives for a moment look at the answers to these questions from an objective viewpoint. Let’s do so WITHOUT judgement of ourselves or our situation.

Do you love your job?
Do you have an amazing relationship with your kids?
Do you have an epic love affair with your partner?
Do you friends share your values?
Do you know what you want in life?
Do you do things/behave to appease others?
Do you know your gifts, talents and strengths?
Are you happy?
Do you love your life?

11% of men and 16% of women are depressed.

The number of unhappy employees outweighs the happy ones 2:1.

Look at your life without judgement

Truth is – we are all EXTRAORDINARY. We each have the potential to achieve more than we have. If you already have everything that you want to experience, then FANTASTIC! Keep on keeping on. If not, then keep reading.

The “PETER” principle helps us to look at what we are doing and evaluating our performance. The formula is: P + E + T = ER

P = our foundational premise – what do we understand and our belief system of it.

E = Effort

T = Time

ER = Extraordinary results

If our effort is fantastic and we’ve been at it for an appropriate length of time but our actions (premise) is incomplete, then our results will be limited.

Perhaps our actions are perfect but our effort isn’t there, then similarly, we won’t achieve our full potential.

For instance – we want to save money. We create a savings account, we deposit money into it, but it’s only been two months of saving, then we won’t have the result we are likely looking for.

What about our health?

We start an exercise regime, we’re putting in outstanding effort and we’ve been at it for months and our results are there! WOO HOO! Exactly what we wanted.

Applying the PETER principle in our lives is a fantastic way to look at our goals and set pace and consistency towards achieving them.

So here are the steps to building your EXTRAORDINARY LIFE:

1. Develop a conscious philosophy. Look at what you believe about the different categories of life (health, intellect, financial, relationships, social wellbeing, or vocation). Does a lack of symptoms mean you are healthy? Is it normal for everyone to get sick? Does having no debt mean you are wealthy? Does not being dumb mean you are intelligent? What does it mean to you to be healthy, wealthy and intelligent? Consciously look at all categories and define it.

2. Build a healthy self esteem. Live consciously, develop self-acceptance, self responsibility, live purposefully, have personal integrity. Nathaniel Branden’s book “The 6 pillars of self esteem” is a great place to start.

3. Develop a crystal clear vision. See step 1. By defining your premises, you will be able to make better and more conscious choices about what to think, eat and how to move your body in ways that set clear parameters to achieve your goals.

4. Identify your purpose. Are you purpose driven or pain and pleasure driven. When we aren’t clear, we work really hard to avoid what we don’t want instead of chasing what we do want and what ignites our spirits.

5. Craft your action plan. Ideation without action is delusion. Set a clear plan to achieve your actions. Book your time to workout and hold it at a high value…just as important as any other appointment. Trust me – one thing I’ve learned the hard way is that committing to yourself is the fastest and best way to build your self esteem. Try it. You’ll realize quickly that it works amazingly well.

Here’s your 7 day Get Started Plan:

Craft your best life

Today: Schedule your Power Hour – spend 30-60 mins each day journaling and writing out your thoughts in each of the categories of life: My Health and Fitness, My Character, My Social Life, My Love Relationship, My Parenting, My Finances, My Intellect, My Career, My Spiritual Life, My Legacy.

For each category – Ask yourself:
– What do you know to be true about (category)?
– What is your vision for your (category)?
– Why do you want it?
– What action steps must you take to make it happen?

Day 1 –- “6 Pillars” Book
Day 2-4 – Answer 4 questions for 3 categories
Day 5-7 – Other 8 Categories

Dr. Craig Hazel’s mission is to help families THRIVE.  After graduating from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Physical and Health Education, he went on to earn a Doctor of Chiropractic degree and a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy from Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas Texas.  He is passionate about seeing children and families in his private practice at Synergy Chiropractic in Kanata Ontario.  A sought after speaker, he has been featured regularly on TSN Team 1200, CTV and Rogers TV. He is also the Chairman of the Alliance for Chiropractic of Ontario.

My Boy!

About this time last year I set out to get healthy!   I know a lot of you are thinking it right now.  “Time to make changes.”  I set out  on the usual path with goals in mind, but boy did the plan change!  I’ll tell you one thing right off the bat, I haven’t been sick in a year!  Yep, Jan 15th 2016, I was suffering with my second round of bronchitis, weight gain, limited physical abilities, and STILL in menopause! Brutal.  I had numbness and tingling in my hands, prone to breaking out in hives, insomnia, and somewhat depressed.  Who wouldn’t be!  I was on a puffer for my lungs, sleeping pills to get some rest and the ususal handful of Advil for all the aches and pains.

It turns out the one constant place, person and treatment where I felt strong and motivated was here!  Synergy Chiropractic.  Their ever abundnant positivity and gentle pushing (and sometimes I needed a healthy shove!) slowly helped me get my act together.  Nothing is as easy as getting on a treadmill, eating a salad and putting a smile on your face.  Everyone’s reality is different.  And the one step forward, two steps back reality can be VERY discouraging.

Slowly but surely I’ve been chipping away at many of my issues and how I got there:

• frequent colds, turning into bronchitis
• hives, from what?
• sleep? what sleep?
• weight, fitness
• over use of medications

Where to start? I think the big picture scared me.  That’s a big list of changes.  But I was sick and tired of being sick and tired!  My immune system was tired.  Worn out.  I had nothing left, so I started there.  Replacing the medical pill popping with vitamin pill popping.  Staying away from people and situations that could compromise my recovery.  Pretty sure the hives were stress related. But I couldn’t tackle it all at once so I gave myself permission to be succesful at just one thing at a time.  And it’s been slow!  I really thought by the end of 2016 I would have achieved all my healthy goals.

What have I achieved?  It started with learning more about vitamins and which ones are important to me.  And sticking with it.  I actually have a gigantic pill box on the kitchen counter to help me stay on track.  There’s a great website http://www.drweil.com/ that I follow.  He also has a health survey you can take and it will provide you with a vitamin protocol.  I don’t do all of it but I certainly do the obvious ones! Multi’s, C, Cal-Mag, Probiotics and more!  (You do have to give your email but I actually like the daily emails – they’re short and relevant and I’ve learned tons!)

Sleep is still an elusive creature.  But I have made changes and it has certainly improved.  And I always sleep better on a day that I’ve had my chiropractic adjustment!  Menopause *sigh*  Well it happens to the best of us lol! But there are also steps I’ve learned that have helped and most importantly not to be angry and frustrated with something that is a healthy part of life.  And also not to use it as an excuse!  “oh the weight gain… well it’s menopause, can’t do anything about that!”  Yes I can!

As most of you know I have a horse and I ride several times a week.  I am not however in great physical shape and that really was one of my goals for 2016.  So now that I have many of the other things under control I have set myself fitness goals that are related ONLY to my riding.  I’m hoping by narrowing the focus a little that I will have better luck sticking with new changes.  For the record… I hate the gym!  I could spend a day at the barn no problem!

I also went back to work this year!  And boy did I get lucky!  What a great place.  I’m learning tons, meeting great people and being supported and pushed along my journey.  Synergy Chiropractic is so much more than a place to get a physical adjustment.  They’ve adjusted my outlook on life and I am excited for 2017!  Round Two!  Another Healthy Year!

Reaching your goals requires determining what’s important to you and not what’s important to someone else.

WOW! What a great summer! It sure flew by and now it’s time to regroup and get back on a schedule! For as long as I can remember I set my goals in the fall. (It usually coincides with the end of one horse show season and setting goals for next year!)

I’m sure many of you have been busy too, with enjoying every last bit of summer, getting kids organized for school and yourself back to a regular work routine. But what else do you want/need to fit into your week? What are your goals? Time for yourself? Maybe it’s time to shake up your fitness routine, or just some alone time? Do you need to bump up your food and supplements as you head into winter?
Write down your top 5. Just the big idea. You can break it down later.

Here are my fall goals;